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Updated: June 24, 2025
This is not yet the place for a description of this regenerated empire of Cyrus; it is sufficient to mention generally the fact that powerful as was the influence of Hellenism in its composition, the Parthian state, as compared with that of the Seleucids, was based on a national and religious reaction, and that the old Iranian language, the order of the Magi and the worship of Mithra, the Oriental feudatory system, the cavalry of the desert and the bow and arrow, first emerged there in renewed and superior opposition to Hellenism.
After 130, he says, 'the philosophy of Greece went straight to the core of the new religion'. A century or so later, 'Greek mysteries and Greek civilization in the whole range of its development exercise their influence on the Church, but as yet not its mythology and polytheism; these were still to come'. 'Another century had to elapse before Hellenism as a whole and in every phase of its development was established in the Church. The process which he describes began, in fact, as soon as Christian preachers used the Greek language, and was never so complete as he says.
Yet the plundering of temples in this way became of more and more frequent occurrence. Titus Flamininus in particular and Marcus Fulvius Nobilior , two leading champions of Roman Hellenism, as well as Lucius Paullus , were the means of filling the public buildings of Rome with the masterpieces of the Greek chisel.
Thus in the intellectual sphere Hellenism made advances quite as incessant as the efforts of the Romans to subject the earth to their sway; and the secondary nationalities, such as the Samnite, Celt, and Etruscan, hard pressed on both sides, were ever losing their inward vigour as well as narrowing their outward bounds. Rome and the Romans of This Epoch
Cosmopolitan Hellenism forces and breaks down the bars of classical traditions, and, weary of restrictions these writers first sought personal satisfaction, and then addressed themselves to scholars rather than the people.
It is all very well to talk of getting rid of one's ignorance, of seeing things in their reality, seeing them in their beauty; but how is this to be done when there is something which thwarts and spoils all our efforts? This something is sin; and the space which sin fills in Hebraism, as compared with Hellenism, is indeed prodigious.
Perhaps the influence of Hebraism on Hellenism may be illustrated by the Alexandrian Philo's pathetic endeavour not only to trace the wisdom of the Greeks to Moses, but to show that this derived lore is much mightier for good when re-invested with the spiritual power and ardent devotion of the Jewish faith. This is the teaching of Moses, not mine.
Six recalcitrant professors went into exile for their spiritual freedom, but they found the devout Zoroastrianism of the Persian court as unsympathetic as the devout Christianity of the Roman. Their humiliating return and recantation broke the 'Golden Chain' of Hellenic thought for ever. Hellenism was thus expiring from its own inanition, when the inevitable avalanche overwhelmed it from without.
And yet the lesson must perforce be learned, that the human spirit is wider than the most priceless of the forces which bear it onward, and that to the whole development of man Hebraism itself is, like Hellenism, but a contribution.
This Indian thought, itself borrowed in a measure from Egypt, had also been tempered by the Hellenism which, after the conquests of Alexander the Great in Asia, had filtered through India, and had on the way become tinged with its colour and its mystery.
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